Glassy Knolls and the Public Thrust
RoboCop (1987)
directed by Paul Verhoeven
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
watched on Netflix Instant
RoboCop is one of those movies that most people I knew had seen before they got to college. I hadn't, so I never did. In some ways I always expected it to look dated, I guess because Total Recall seems like such an early-90s artifact in my head. Is it the cinematography? The production design? Sharon Stone and Arnold Schwarzenegger?
RoboCop looks like 1987. Verhoeven was almost fifty when he directed it. I'm glad I waited twenty-five years (!) to chance upon RoboCop on Netflix, since the decades gave the Internet time to log every piece of trivia that fans could gather. Now I don't have to spend my morning trying to puzzle out whether the movie is "fascism for liberals," a black comedy, or a conservative dream come true. It doesn't really matter.
The first thing I noticed was the Twin Peaks connection - Miguel Ferrer, Dan O'Herlihy, Ray Wise - which, once I'd confirmed that Dan O'Herlihy played Andrew Packard through IMDB, inevitably sent me down the rabbit hole of re-reading proposed Twin Peaks storylines. I still shake my head at Kyle MacLachlan and his moralism with regards to season two. I'd have missed Annie, of course, but it makes so much more sense for Windom Earle to kidnap Audrey and leave her in the Black Lodge. Romance!
RoboCop is not romantic. Human relations of any sort are subverted by a super-ego-driven obsession with latex and firearms. Since most of the exteriors were filmed in Dallas, not Detroit, the movie felt like an inside joke about "Big D," except that Verhoeven is Dutch, and had probably never been to Texas. I enjoyed myself most in the most excessive moments, which revolve around Rob Bottin's special effects. I couldn't buy the dad from That '70s Show as a villain, but I like to think that the toxic waste mutant reappears in Irvin Kershner's sequel, arm in arm with Peter Weller, painting the town red.
directed by Paul Verhoeven
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
watched on Netflix Instant
RoboCop is one of those movies that most people I knew had seen before they got to college. I hadn't, so I never did. In some ways I always expected it to look dated, I guess because Total Recall seems like such an early-90s artifact in my head. Is it the cinematography? The production design? Sharon Stone and Arnold Schwarzenegger?
RoboCop looks like 1987. Verhoeven was almost fifty when he directed it. I'm glad I waited twenty-five years (!) to chance upon RoboCop on Netflix, since the decades gave the Internet time to log every piece of trivia that fans could gather. Now I don't have to spend my morning trying to puzzle out whether the movie is "fascism for liberals," a black comedy, or a conservative dream come true. It doesn't really matter.
The first thing I noticed was the Twin Peaks connection - Miguel Ferrer, Dan O'Herlihy, Ray Wise - which, once I'd confirmed that Dan O'Herlihy played Andrew Packard through IMDB, inevitably sent me down the rabbit hole of re-reading proposed Twin Peaks storylines. I still shake my head at Kyle MacLachlan and his moralism with regards to season two. I'd have missed Annie, of course, but it makes so much more sense for Windom Earle to kidnap Audrey and leave her in the Black Lodge. Romance!
RoboCop is not romantic. Human relations of any sort are subverted by a super-ego-driven obsession with latex and firearms. Since most of the exteriors were filmed in Dallas, not Detroit, the movie felt like an inside joke about "Big D," except that Verhoeven is Dutch, and had probably never been to Texas. I enjoyed myself most in the most excessive moments, which revolve around Rob Bottin's special effects. I couldn't buy the dad from That '70s Show as a villain, but I like to think that the toxic waste mutant reappears in Irvin Kershner's sequel, arm in arm with Peter Weller, painting the town red.
posted by NPK at 9:21 AM
<< Home